Introduction
Having spent the first forty-one years of my life in England, I thought it might be of interest to leave a few notes on what life was like in the days before we came to Australia, and the more I thought about this, the more I began to realize that this could develop into a project which would be much larger than I had originally thought but would give me something to do after I had finished working, so now that I do have the time - I've decided to give it a go.
I looked back in the hope of taking stock but could make little sense of the jumble of images and long forgotten voices that came back to me. This was not very encouraging, but I thought that if I could just jot down a few notes about events and put them into date order, perhaps some sort of framework would emerge that I could add too bit by bit. I also quietly hoped that at the end of all this, someone might be game enough to read beyond page one!
At that moment, I felt that I had been around forever, but without any clear recollection of the past, so I allowed my mind to wander back in time and see what came into it. The idea of remembering people, places and bits of conversations had never before occurred to me but taking a trip down the so-called "memory lane" now held a certain attraction. However, almost immediately an unforeseen problem arose, and that problem was dates. Dates are notoriously difficult to pin down as they have to be related to other events so that a logical chain can be established.
Sometimes odd events not directly connected with anything come to mind, and these have been included in the order of events where they seem to be most appropriate. A few dates may not be as accurate as they should be, but I've done the best I can to get them right. Also, as I began to mentally wind the clock back, I realised that I would be revisiting places and events on my own, without the company and companionship of those who were there at the time, and that this may be quite a long and lonely journey.
I am writing this in the year 2024, having orbited the sun more than 80 times and still counting. I am not as physically fit or as mentally agile as I used to be, and life has settled into what some would consider to be a rather monotonous and boring routine. However, it is not like that at all - it is a steady, enjoyable and rather predictable life which suits me very well. Also, having a wife who considers that gardening is a wonderful pastime, and who really enjoys overcoming its many challenges has been a great blessing for me. On the other-hand I am able to do more or less as I please and enjoy a laid-back, contented life. I would like to continue orbiting the sun for many years to come, but as we all know there is a finite limit to all of this which I intend to delay for as long as possible. So, with this in mind, I had best get on with it.
It all started like this - sitting at my desk a while ago, a couple of questions came to mind, prompted by something I had recently seen on T.V. What had my life been about, and had I actually achieved anything of value? These questions had never previously entered my mind, and I have never felt the need to discuss my life with anyone, but it suddenly dawned on me that the idea may have some merit. It would at least give me something to do during this period of reduced activity.
After thinking about this for a while, I feel sure that a part of this more relaxed lifestyle is a reaction to the days when, like many thousands of other people, I had to go to bed early in order to rise at 5.30 the next morning and go to work. My mother was a tremendous help in this as she always got out of bed early, put on her fur overcoat (and sometimes her fur hat) and brought me a hot cup of tea before I also had to get out of bed. She did this every morning, which was a thankless task particularly in winter as the house had no central heating and often the frost had to be rubbed off the inside of the windows in order to be able to see what the conditions were like outside.
Work started at 7.30am in the centre of Coventry, which was about 20 miles south-east of Birmingham, and although it was not too bad in the summertime, it could be somewhat arduous during the shorter days of winter. I had to walk about a mile to get the company bus which stopped opposite a large pub called "The Good Companions" which was on the city-bound side of the Coventry Rd, virtually opposite Manor House Lane in Sheldon. With the return walk in the evening, during the winter months I often did not see my home in daylight from one weekend to the next. That of course was in the days when the working week was 44 hours and not the 38 hours it was at the time we came to Australia. Here, it has been quite easy as the weather has been much warmer, and I could enjoy a leisurely drive to and from work during the week.
After our arrival in Australia, we lived in rental accommodation for about a year, giving us the opportunity to look around at various places and get used to the Australian way of doing things. Eventually, quite near the centre of Melton, we found a block of land which was large enough to accommodate a four-bedroomed house and carport and still provide us with a good-sized rear garden. Melton which had a population of about 17,000, was about an hours drive along the Western Highway from Melbourne and was connected to the city by bus and rail services. Having visited several other locations, we decided to buy a block of land quite near a school and shops and have our house built there.
Early Days
Mom and Dad lived in a traditional Council House which was the same as thousands - if not millions of others up and down the country. These were designed to provide a adequate standard of housing for people who could afford to pay a reasonable rent but who could not afford to pay a fairly hefty deposit that was a pre-requisite to obtaining a mortgage in order that they could buy their own private dwelling.
Dad's first job was in the accounts department of the Birmingham Small Arms (B.S.A.) factory in Armoury Road, Small Heath, but after a while the office manager complained that dad was not completing all of his allocated work for the day. Dad told him that as several members of the staff kept asking him about the best way to present their work, he was not left with sufficient time to complete his own. Apparently, the office manager told Dad that his explanation was not satisfactory, so dad said goodbye, left the office, never to return.
Within a few days he secured a position with Gittins and Co., an accountancy firm of some repute also located in Temple St., where he stayed for several years. As a point of interest, Temple Street and Temple Row were noted as the finance and legal centre of what is now known as the West Midlands, and perhaps they still are.
With quite a lot of encouragement from Mom, Dad eventually left paid employment and opened up his own accountancy business at 560 Coventry Road Small Heath, in partnership with Ted Challenor. Strangely, I still remember the phone number of that old office - VICtoria 0080.
I was born in my parent's rented house, 25, Broadyates Road, Yardley, Birmingham 26, on the 26th March 1940.
My mother told Pam that she did not know who her real father was, as her mother gave birth to her while she was unmarried, but soon after married a widower, whom my Mother said she knew as her father as she grew up, and he was very good to her. He was a tram driver.
I do have clear memories of the large bonfires that were lit in many residential streets to mark VE (Victory in Europe) Day. From the early stages of the war at intervals along most residential streets there began to appear what were called "Pig Bins," which were metal bins into which families were encouraged to deposit left over or waste food. These were emptied weekly and after some form of processing their contents were trucked to various farms to help with the food supply for the farm animals.
School Years
My first school was Saint Benedicts, which stood on the left-hand side of Saint Benedicts Road, Small Heath, which was more or less opposite the B.S.A. factory. Three items regarding my first day remain clearly in my mind. The first was the small bottle of milk, which I later found out contained a third of a pint and by law was given to every schoolchild in the land on every school day and was free of charge. The second picture in my memory is the fair-haired girl named (co-incidentally) Pamela who sat opposite me at our desk and spent most of her day being smacked and crying. The third item, about which I had no understanding at all, was the mystery of how the dinner-money system worked.
I failed the notorious Eleven-Plus exam, and to this day I believe this failure was something of a blessing. This belief is founded on the fact that if I had passed this exam, I would have been packed off to a Grammar School somewhere where I would have been taught all about Banking, Insurance, Accountancy, Law, Economics, and all sorts of other hairy-fairy things which at that time seemed to have little connection with the real world. The world I lived in revolved around Science, Practical Mathematics, Electricity, Steam and Internal Combustion Engines, General Engineering, Woodwork and all the other things that really mattered and made the world tick.
I started at Cockshut Hill Secondary Modern School, together with Ted Beardsmore, a good friend of mine who lived further down Patrick Road where it becomes Vera Road. The entry into the school was quite seamless, despite tales to the contrary, I was not subjected to the harassment and bullying I had been led to expect.
It was early during our third year at school that Ted and I discovered that we were both fairly good middle-distance runners, and with encouragement from the athletics master we both joined Sparkhill Harriers to improve our running technique and run against some proper athletes. Ted and I were awarded our athletics colours during our last year at school, which allowed us to wear a green spray of foliage under the school badges on our blazers. Our best time for the mile was 4mins 19secs, when we finished side by side and breasted the tape together. This we achieved in 1954 when Roger Bannister became the first athlete in the world to break the four-minute mile barrier with a world record time of 3mins 59.4secs.
Armstrong Siddeley & Rolls Royce
My next interview was with Armstrong Siddeley Motors in Coventry, an entirely different kettle of fish as I had to explain the difference, in general terms between a piston engine and a gas turbine engine and explain what I had done regarding any practical metal work or work on engines at school or home.
This was not too difficult, and they were interested in learning that we students had been introduced to the use of tools such as files, scrapers, hammers, chisels and punches, together with measuring instruments like the Micrometer, the Vernier Caliper and the Vernier Protractor, not normally done until technical school or engineering college. Naturally, I was very pleased to receive my letter of acceptance a couple of weeks later, and was proud to be able to buy my mother a box of Black Magic chocolates out of my first weeks pay, which I believe was the princely sum of two pounds five shillings and sixpence for a 44-hour week.
I was not to know at that time that these days were the humble beginnings of the best and most satisfying job that I ever had.
The company I worked for in Coventry had over many years, changed its name from Siddeley Deasey Motors to Armstrong Siddeley Motors, then to Bristol Siddeley Engines until finally, after the merger with Rolls Royce Aircraft Engines, it become Rolls Royce Aircraft Engines - Coventry, with the headquarters and main factory remaining in Derby.
One of our most memorable days was when Eric, Dave and myself were summoned to a meeting in the Technical drawing office, and we were introduced to Dr. Stanley George Hooker, CBE, FRS, DPhil, BSc, FRAeS, MIMechE, FAAAS, a mathematician, engineer and designer of, amongst many others the RB211 Hi-Bypass Turbo Fan engine, which we were going to start building very soon.
I wish that I could have stayed within the aircraft industry, specializing in Metrology and Quality Assurance, as I derived much pleasure and satisfaction from interpreting the requirements of the designer, who expressed his precise requirements through the use of linear, angular, surface and geometric tolerancing on his drawings.
Being proficient in the use of a wide range of measuring machines and other devices, at the end of the day, my colleagues and I could ensure that skilled operators, craftsmen and many others had succeeded in their efforts to satisfy the designer's requirements.
I have rambled on about precision engineering and measurement but, together with associated activities it opened up occupations and areas of engineering that I never knew existed. It was a peach of a job and by far the most interesting and rewarding with which I have ever been associated.
The Accident
On July 18th. 1958, I had a road traffic accident and was off work for 13 months waiting for sixteen fractures to heal themselves. At the time, a few people queried this figure, but I can only quote what was written in the Admission Report by Dr. Proctor, the attending fracture specialist. The number of fractures I incurred were:
Skull: 1, Pond-like depression frontal sinus: 1, Upper Jaw: 3, Lower Jaw: 3, Right Scapula: 1, Right Elbow: 1, Right Cheek-Bone: 3, Left Cheek-Bone: 3, Right Leg Tibia & Fibula: 2 - Total number of fractures: 18
Marriage to Sheila
After I returned to work at Armstrong Siddeley in Coventry, I had to resume studies at the Garretts Green Technical College, so I re-enrolled in 1960, and who should I find there as a trainee teacher but my old friend Phillip! In class I sat next to a lad named Graham Brewer who was very keen on camping and climbing in North Wales, and during our chats together I told him that I was also interested in climbing.
By prior arrangement, Graham brought along his next-door neighbour, and we took his friend Geoff Fulwell on one of our weekend trips. As time went by, it was not surprising to find ourselves discussing the evolving pattern of our friendship, and during this period I got to know his sister, Sheila, and a mutual attraction and friendship soon developed between us.
Sheila and I were married at Sheldon Parish Church in Yardley in 1966 and enjoyed a two-week honeymoon on the Channel Island of Guernsey.
On 20 December 1971, our son Kristian was born at the Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry, and after the initial turmoil that such an event always brings, we settled down to a life of peace, quiet and normality.
Around Christmas time 1974, everything fell apart. A tremendous political battle was taking place between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the leader of the National Union of Mine Workers, Arthur Scargill. Due to this strike, there was no coal being produced, and the existing supplies had to be rationed.
A couple of nights later, I had just turned off the TV and was ready for bed when I heard Sheila's tapping on the bedroom floor. This was our pre-arranged signal that she wanted something, and as I had just made our late night hot drinks, I took them upstairs to the bedroom. There, I was confronted by what is still the greatest shock of my life. Sheila had passed away.
Meeting Pamela
I cherished the dream that somewhere, sometime, I would rebuild my family and restart my life. Focusing on this was a tremendous help at the time and I believe it saved me from what could have been a serious bout of depression.
Sometime later, whilst wandering around Hudson's Bookshop in New Street, Birmingham, Pamela suddenly appeared out of the shadows and asked if she could be of any help. I asked her to direct me to some books relating to the precise measurement of gears, and she immediately led me to a copy of Gayler and Shotbolt's "Metrology for Engineers."
After my purchase, on the way home by bus, I started to think about Pam. She was an attractive young lady, had long dark hair and a nice speaking voice, and my thoughts about her inspired me to return to the bookshop the following Saturday to see if she was still there. She was, and over lunch at a nearby cafe we agreed to meet again.
Pam said yes, our respective parents were very pleased. The die was now cast for our future lives together. We were married at the Solihull Civic Centre on September 25, 1976.
It is true that the coming together of Pam, Kris and myself has turned out to be the most important event of my life, and this was made complete by the knowledge that we had the support and best wishes of our respective parents. It was made even more special by the way that Pam and Kris came together as mother and son in a relationship that has stabilized and blossomed over many years.
During our pre-wedding discussions, we had touched on the subject of children, but didn't come to any positive conclusions, and thought it best to let nature take its course. Nature did take its course all right, and in addition to Kris, we have Susan and Martin, both born in England, and Linda and Steven, both born in Australia.
Learning to Fly
Having always had a passing interest in aircraft operations, I bought myself a small radio that could receive the aircraft frequencies, and one Saturday afternoon when I had to be in Coventry, I decided to go to Coventry airport and try it out. Having found the correct frequency, I was fascinated to watch and hear a female pilot join the circuit, report herself on the downwind leg, crosswind and final legs of the circuit, land and park her Cessna right in front of where I was parked. I knew instinctively that I could do that, so I decided to learn to fly!
After receiving the money from the sale of the house, and paying off the building society, there was still a handsome sum remaining and it was from this that I paid for flying lessons with Fletcher Aviation and qualified as a Private Pilot after the required forty hours of training.
Holidays and Travels
Holidays have always been a important part of my life. The first real holiday I remember was taken in North Wales, as the warmer South Coast of England, which included the ports of Dover, Folkstone, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bristol, Plymouth and even Cardiff in South Wales were closed-off from the general public during the war.
After the war ended, we started to venture further afield, with Sidmouth on the South Devon Coast followed by the Isle of Wight, Guernsey, Jersey, Cadenabbia in Northern Italy, San Remo on the Italian Riviera, San Feliu on the Costa Brava in Spain, then Tarragona also in Spain topped off by a motoring tour of Germany, Bavaria and Austria, to name some of them.
In 1954 we went to Northern Italy, when we stayed in what used to be a duke's palace at Cadenabbia on the western side of Lake Como. One vivid memory I have was my swim from Cadenabbia to Bellagio, a distance of about 1.6km or a mile in proper measurement, with Bellagio sitting at the apex of the inverted Y shape in the middle of the lake opposite Cadenabbia.
So taken was I with the island of Guernsey that in 1966 (the year England beat Germany and won the F.A. World Cup) I honeymooned there with my first wife Sheila at a small hotel overlooking the bay of Moulin Huet and the Pea Stacks, on the south coast of the island.
Moving to Australia
One evening whilst scanning the Birmingham Mail for jobs, I noticed a position for a Chief Inspector advertised for a foundry in Sommerville Road. What had completely escaped me, was that it was Victoria Australia and not Victoria in Small Heath, Birmingham.
A few nights later I went out for a drink with my old friend Ted Beardsmore, and when I returned Pam told me that she had received a phone call from a John Savona, Chief Design Engineer at National Forge, Sommerville Rd, Melbourne, Australia, who wanted to discuss my application for the position of Chief Inspector.
John rang through as expected and during our thirty minutes on the phone said that he and the works manager would be in the UK over Christmas and would like to interview me. This they did at one of the large hotels in Birmingham and in the January sent me a letter to say that my interview had been successful and asked me to contact the Australian Consulate in Manchester to get things moving.
After an interview at the Australian Consulate, we came away with the sure knowledge that our application to emigrate to Australia had been approved, and what followed is, as they say, history.
Reflections
I want to give a sense of what life in England was like, with its history and traditions that I miss even to this day. Also, with Dad having his own accountancy business - Hadley and Co. - I do appreciate that we were somewhat insulated from the hardships and the many irritants suffered by those who were dependent on or allied to the car industry.
Yet, somehow most of us were able to remain positive and believed that as things could not get any worse, they were bound to get better, and generally I believe they did.
After losing Sheila and putting up with the shenanigans of her parents for about two years, marrying Pamela became the greatest event and piece of good fortune in my life, and has been a totally different and fascinating experience for me. Our respective parents got along well so Pam and I got off to a very good start.
Pam has a very individual way of thinking and going about things, but she said that as long as I did not get too dogmatic and that I gave her a bit of space, then at the end of the day everything would turn out very much as we hoped... AND IT HAS!
A Father's Words
So, why are we here? Why have we all made the effort to be in the same place at the same time on the same day? We are here because, hidden from us, we share a common set of values. We may not be aware of these as we hardly ever think about them, and never seem to talk about them, but they are here, with us.
When spoken, these values sound rather quaint, old fashioned and somewhat out of place in today's so called civilized world. They have however, been quietly trickling down through the countless generations of those who have gone before, and they have found a resting place within our family, and will hopefully continue to trickle down through the next generations that will follow us.
Freedom, Honor, Hope and Integrity should not only be cherished by ourselves, but Obligation, Respect, Mercy, Tolerance, Justice and yes, Hope as well, should be shown to and wished for others.
The above are pillars upon which, unwittingly, we have based, built and conducted our lives. These values have served us well, and it would be wise to ensure that they continue to do so.
Finally, to our younger members - my generation is leaving you a world that is not in very good shape. It is being continually damaged by Politics, Greed, Denial, Victimhood, Religion, and Race, but it is not beyond the wit of mankind to overcome these problems, but whether or not they will do so rests in your hands, not mine.